Top End solar farms finally allowed to send power to the grid
Three utility-scale solar farms in the Northern Territory are finally being allowed to send power to the grid and ramp up to full capacity – some five years after they were actually built.
The stranding of the three solar projects – at Katherine, Batchelor and Manton Dam - has been one of the more extraordinary episodes in Australia’s energy transition.
They were not banned from producing, but operating conditions imposed after they were built were so severe that none could see the point of generating.
Solar in the NT is hampered by issues around integration with the territory’s cumbersome fossil fuel generators, and a lack of knowledge about how that can be done.
The 25 MW Katherine solar farm has already been slowly ramping up after the addition of a battery in 2022 that would help it meet a strict rolling forecast system.
Now the smaller 10 MW solar farms at Batchelor and Manton Dam to the north are also sending power to the grid.
Meanwhile, a fourth solar farm affected by the strict operating conditions, also located at Batchelor, has been the subject of a legal case seeking liquidated damages for the delay in production.